


By the tree that weeps with me

by apprenticeandfamiliar



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Female Apprentice (The Arcana), Muriel Route (The Arcana), Named Apprentice (The Arcana), Please read the note before the fic, Potential look at a Reversed Ending for Muriel, So prepare yourself for sadness, The violence here is actually graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:47:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26242897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apprenticeandfamiliar/pseuds/apprenticeandfamiliar
Summary: A look at a possible reversed ending for the Muriel Route.
Relationships: Apprentice/Muriel (The Arcana)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	By the tree that weeps with me

**Author's Note:**

> \- Hey so I ended up choosing the E rating to be safe in this case, because I believe that even if it is just two mentions, they are fairly graphic (and could also count as Body Horror along the transformation that happens at the end, so if that's not your thing, I understand if you leave)
> 
> \- If you are still here, enjoy!

The light blinds her.

Once she can get accustomed to it, Miranda can see two familiar faces looking at her.

The severe features of Morga and the kind ones of Khamgalai offer her a comfort she did not expect.

"Am I dead?" She cannot help but ask.

"Yes, my dear," Khamgalai tells her as she sits up, soothingly taking her hand.

"You don't have much time." Morga kneels by her side. "You did better this once, he is starting to remember."

"You think I shall be able to stop him?"

"Only you will be able to see it, Miranda." Khamgalai presses a kiss to her brow.

Miranda feels a searing pain to her chest. She's going to wake up again.

"And pray we won't see each other again," Morga says before light engulfs everything again.

Miranda is now surrounded by the terrified people that keep silent. She cannot see her friends. None of them. And she wonders if they might have survived or not.

She feels someone tug at her tattered skirts.

It's Nachin, the little boy who spoke with Muriel of the chickens in what seems now a long time ago.

She can see that he is terrified, and she follows her instinct and picks him up in her arms. The poor thing latches at her as if she were the only protection he could ever have and hides in her chest.

"Don't worry, Nachin," she promises, pressing a little kiss to his cheek, "you are safe with me."

Not the complete truth. But truth nonetheless if she manages what she is here for.

At this point, she knows the forest well enough to carry him and carry him he does when they hear the growls of the Beast.

Even if she wants to help as many people as she can, she knows she cannot. Not this time.

She runs, and hides, and stays as silent as she can. She is grateful that Nachin does the same.

The Beast shall search for her. Tear her ribcage open, and take her heart for the Devil.

He's done it five times already.

But it's in the last two that she has realised who the Beast truly is. Those green eyes that she could recognise in a heartbeat, looking at her in utter horror as he realised what he was doing.

Then that same reaction when she dared to kiss him even as he plunged his hand inside her chest.

The Beast was Muriel, used as a plaything of the Devil, just as he was a plaything of Lucio before they met.

But she broke him out of that state once, she'll do it again.

The Beast has noticed them and has stopped.

Miranda uses the chance to help Nachin to his feet, placing a little amulet in his hands.

"He will not harm you, Nachin."

"And you?"

"We'll see." She kisses Nachin's brow. "Now run, I'll catch you later."

Nachin, sweet boy that he is, does as told, and that leaves Miranda alone with Muriel.

He's bigger, more animalistic, as if he had gotten imbued with the size and power of the Hermit even if he is still hunched over as he used to be before all this.

And yet he is paralysed as she approaches him.

Does that mean that he remembers?

She raises her hand to touch his cheek.

"No..." 

His eyes widen before he looks away in horror.

"Muriel..." She tells him, calm, even if she knows what comes to her if she fails. "Muriel, it's me, Miranda..."

"No... No. You are dead."

He looks back at her, and the fear is too obvious, almost a plea for her to be dead. Otherwise, he'll have to kill her again.

But she takes his hand, placing it on her chest.

"You don't have to do it." She tells him, resting her hand on his. "We can defeat him, together. And restore the world to how it should be."

"She's a liar, you know." A voice says behind him, and Miranda looks to find him.

Lucio, still merged with the Devil, approaches them and sets near Muriel, petting him gently like one would a dog.

"The world is how it should be. You are what you should have always been. My bloodthirsty Beast..."

"He is no beast." She says, and they both turn to face her.

"Oh, how cute..." Lucio says. "You think you have power here."

Miranda does not pay attention to them, approaching Muriel instead, even if she feels as if her heart were going to stop at any given moment.

She rests her hand on his chest, feeling the chains that bind him to the Devil. Chains that he wore hoping that no harm would come to anyone.

But the Devil always finds loopholes for everything, and here they are, suffering the consequences.

But if a kiss freed him from his previous chains... who was to say that she did not hold any power? 

Power to defeat the Devil.

Power to grant Muriel some semblance of rest by her side.

Power to end this.

So, Miranda cups Muriel's cheek, to make him look at her.

"Whatever happens, remember that I love you."

With that, she kisses him, and the heaviness of the chains lifts from his chest, and he brings her so close that there's almost no space between them, and neither do they pay attention to the screams coming from their side.

But the heaviness of the chains is soon changed by another kind. 

Just as Lucio, as the Devil lies nearby, tied in chains and transformed into stone, so they are being tied to the earth in a way that they cannot move.

Miranda turns her gaze to a worried Muriel.

"No..." That's the only thing he manages to say.

But Miranda cups his cheeks, making him look at her.

"Muriel, everything will be fine." She tells him, as reassuring as she can. "I love you."

"I... I love you too..."

And the rest is silence, as the forest overtakes them, and they become one with it.

Bark, and rock, and soil.

Forever entwined with each other.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Title after the song "O Willow Waly", mostly because I've gone quite feral after listening to it in the trailer of "The Haunting of Bly Manor"
> 
> \- Do I hate myself for this? The answer is yes.
> 
> \- But Muriel being forced to harm the Apprentice is such a fitting reversed ending (even when not taken to the extremes to where I have taken it) that I could not lose the opportunity to write something about it (and give it a kind of bittersweet ending).
> 
> \- Also, huge inspiration for this: The Story of Nastaglio Degli Onesti, a series of paintings by Botticelli based on a story from the Decameron.


End file.
